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Media Decoder: Glenn Beck Begins Campaign to Urge TV Systems to Add His Web Channel

8:48 a.m. | Updated Glenn Beck is beginning a campaign to get his Internet channel, TheBlaze, onto cable and satellite television systems across the country, and the one system that already carries the channel, Dish Network, is backing him up.

The campaign will begin on Monday when Mr. Beck starts promoting GetTheBlaze.com, a Web site that asks fans to contact their television provider and request the channel. He will talk about the site on his nationally syndicated radio show and link to it on his social networking Web sites.

“You probably pay good money every month to your TV provider for access to channels like MSNBC and Al Jazeera America — channels that you might not watch, or even agree with,” Mr. Beck wrote in a letter on the Web site. “Adding TheBlaze will ensure that you and your family have a source of news and analysis that you can trust and that doesn’t betray your values.”

Mr. Beck has previously indicated that he plans to position the channel as a libertarian news and entertainment source, which would put it into relatively direct competition with Fox News Channel, where he hosted a hugely popular 5 p.m. talk show for nearly three years. The plan is rather audacious, partly because TheBlaze is owned by Mr. Beck’s company, Mercury Radio Arts, not by a media conglomerate like Fox’s parent, News Corporation.

Twenty months ago Mr. Beck left Fox and started GBTV, the subscriber-only Internet channel that he later renamed TheBlaze. Within a year he had 300,000 subscribers, no small feat for any Web site. But by then he’d also decided he wanted to get back on old-fashioned TV. In September 2012 Mr. Beck announced a carriage deal with Dish, the first of what his company hoped would be many such deals. Simply stated, the economics of television are better — TV channels get small per-subscriber fees, whether or not the subscribers ever watch, and the advertising possibilities are enormous.

Dish has a period of exclusivity with TheBlaze, so no other cable or satellite system can carry the channel quite yet. The companies haven’t disclosed how long this period lasts, but it is probably ending soon, because TheBlaze is starting its campaign now. Such campaigns are attempted all the time by small, independently-owned channels, often with little success. Ordinarily cable and satellite systems are reticent to carry new channels; in fact, the trend is in the other direction, toward dropping independent channels altogether.

But what Mr. Beck has — and what other small channel owners don’t have — is an audience of millions on the radio and on the Internet. And some help from the Dish Network. In a statement provided by a spokesman for the channel, Dave Shull, the Dish senior vice president of programming, said, “TheBlaze and Glenn Beck bring a unique perspective to Dish’s broad spectrum of political programming on all sides.” When the channel was added last fall, he said, “We had customers sign up quickly, and we saw new customers join Dish. In fact, subscriptions attributable to TheBlaze outpaced our projections by 80 percent, proving that Dish is giving customers what they want with a choice in programming, not to mention the technology to choose how to watch it.”

Even with Dish’s endorsement, it remains to be seen whether other cable and satellite systems — such as DirecTV, Comcast and Time Warner Cable — will agree to carry TheBlaze. They may simply point out that viewers can find it on the Internet.

An end to Web streaming was something Al Jazeera accepted when it bought Current TV in January for an estimated $500 million. (Mr. Beck said he tried to bid for the channel, but was rebuffed by Current’s co-founders, Al Gore and Joel Hyatt.) Al Jazeera currently streams its English-language news channel on the Internet free, but to make its cable and satellite distributors happy, it will stop doing so when it officially replaces Current this spring.

Then again, the Al Jazeera stream was free; the Internet stream of TheBlaze is only accessible to subscribers. Asked whether the channel would be taken off the Internet as a condition of gaining carriage on television, a spokesman said, “TheBlaze has no plans to do that at this time and believes that the continued success of the subscription platform proves to distributors the demand for our content.”

Along with the campaign announcement on Monday, TheBlaze said that Lynne Costantini, a former Time Warner Cable and Scripps Networks executive, was joining the channel as president of business development, to lead its effort to get on television.

The “Get TheBlaze” campaign will commence in phases and last for at least nine months. Mr. Beck wrote in his letter: “This journey for truth that we are on is much bigger than you and I; the future of liberty is hanging in the balance. All of us have a choice to make: sit on the sideline, or get involved.” He described TheBlaze not just as a family-friendly news and entertainment channel, but a cog in nationwide political change.

“If we succeed then we change the media. If we change the media, we control the debate. If we control the debate, we change politics. And if we change politics, we change the country,” he wrote.

TheBlaze has more than 40 hours of programming a week, including simulcasts of Mr. Beck’s radio show, a nightly show of his just for the channel, a nightly panel conversation about the news, and a couple of documentaries and reality shows. In January Mr. Beck described ambitious plans for the channel, involving more news reporting (“We are currently looking for our own Woodwards and Bernsteins,” he said) and a libertarian bent. “I consider myself a libertarian,” Mr. Beck said.

Many Cruise Ship Lack Backup Power Systems, Vexing Regulators

“It was really hell,” said Bernice Spreckman, who is 77 and lives in Yonkers, N.Y. “I used my life jacket, which was flashing with a little light on it, to find a bathroom it was so dark.”

Ms. Spreckman was not among the 4,200 people aboard the Carnival Triumph who this month endured five days of sewage-soaked carpets and ketchup sandwiches. Her trial at sea came in 2010, on another ship run by Carnival Cruises, called the Splendor, which carried 4,500 passengers.

On both ships, fires broke out below decks, destroying the electrical systems and leaving them helpless. A preliminary Coast Guard inquiry into the Splendor found glaring deficiencies in its firefighting operations, including manuals that called for crew members to “pull” valves that were designed to turn.

But more than two years after the episode, the final report about what happened on the Splendor has yet to appear, a reflection of what critics say is a pattern of international regulatory roulette that governs cruise ship safety.

While the Splendor was based in the United States, the ship was legally registered in Panama, meaning the Panamanian Maritime Authority had the right to lead the investigation. But after the 2010 fire, Panamanian regulators chose to have the Coast Guard take over the inquiry. Then, officials in both countries apparently spent months trading drafts of their reports.

One official in Panama said the authority had completed its review of the Splendor report in October 2012. But a Coast Guard spokeswoman, Lisa Novak, said it still had not “finalized” the report. In the case of the Carnival Triumph, the regulatory scene will shift to the Bahamas, where that ship was registered.

In a recent letter to Coast Guard officials, Senator Jay Rockefeller, Democrat of West Virginia, said that cruise ships seemed to have two separate lives. Only during days near port are they closely monitored.

“Once they are beyond three nautical miles from shore, the world is theirs,” said the letter from Senator Rockefeller, who has headed recent inquiries into cruise ship safety.

Cruise industry officials point out that seaborne vacations are extremely safe and that some 20 million people go on cruises annually, with few problems. The most glaring exception to that record occurred last year when a vessel operated by a subsidiary of Carnival, the Costa Concordia, ran aground off the coast of Italy, resulting in 32 deaths.

In the Triumph’s case, the Coast Guard has said that the ship’s safety equipment contained the blaze. And both the Triumph and the Splendor returned from their aborted voyages without serious injuries to passengers or crew.

But those successes also underscore what most travelers do not realize when they book cruises: nearly all ships lack backup systems to help them return to port should power fail because to install them would have cost operators more money.

The results are repeated episodes involving dead ships, with all the discomforts and potential dangers such situations can bring. In another case, in late 2012, the Costa Allegra cruise ship, a sister ship of the Concordia, lost power after a fire in the generator room and it had to be towed under guard from its location in the Indian Ocean.

In many ways, passengers aboard boats like the Triumph and Splendor were lucky because their ships were disabled in calm weather, when instead they could have been knocked out during storms, or when they were far out at sea or in pirate-infested waters, experts said.

“Anything that knocks a ship dead in the water is serious,” said Mark Gaouette, a safety expert and former Navy officer.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 25, 2013

A caption with an earlier version of this article misstated the number of passengers on the Carnival Splendor when it was disabled at sea. There were 4,500 aboard, not 14,500.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: February 25, 2013

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the performance of the safety equipment on the Triumph. It contained the blaze; it is not the case that it failed to contain it.

Battery Maker A123 Systems Files for Bankruptcy

The company’s bankruptcy filing was unexpected, since it struck a deal in August to sell a majority stake to a Chinese auto parts manufacturer. That agreement, with the Wanxiang Group, provided an apparent lifeline to the company. But A123, which has received federal grant money, said the Wanxiang deal was never completed, and on Monday, it failed to make a debt payment due on $75 million it had borrowed from Wanxiang.

In announcing its bankruptcy filing, A123 said it had agreed to sell its automotive assets and factories to Johnson Controls, another American battery producer that has benefited from federal assistance, in a deal it valued at $125 million.

A123, based in Waltham, Mass., was once considered one of the most promising grant recipients under the administration’s $2 billion stimulus program for electric car development. The Department of Energy awarded the company a $249 million grant to establish battery manufacturing operations in Michigan, although A123 had received only about $132 million of the grant before its bankruptcy.

The company’s failure may well become a political football in the presidential campaign, in which energy policy has been a leading topic. The Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, has repeatedly criticized President Obama for his heavy spending on green-energy programs, including a $528 million loan to Solyndra, a solar module maker that went bankrupt last year.

“A123’s bankruptcy is yet another failure for the president’s disastrous strategy of gambling away billions of taxpayer dollars on a strategy of government-led growth that simply does not work,” said Andrea Saul, Mr. Romney’s press secretary, in a statement on Tuesday.

The Energy Department defended the federal grant to A123 as one of many bipartisan efforts to support American manufacturing of lithium-ion batteries for electric cars. A department official, Dan Leistikow, said in a blog post that the administration had awarded $2 billion in grants to 29 companies involved in the electrification of vehicles, creating thousands of jobs.

A123 has used about $132 million of its grant to date, plus another $6 million given in 2007 by the Bush administration, said Mr. Leistikow, the agency’s director of public affairs. Michigan has also given A123 a $9 million grant, plus various tax breaks.

Mr. Leistikow said the federal money would not be wasted because A123’s two Michigan factories would now be operated by Johnson Controls.

“In an emerging industry, it’s very common to see some firms consolidate with others as the industry grows and matures,” he said.

The department previously gave Johnson Controls, based in Wisconsin, its own $299 million federal grant for an electric-car battery project.

The Solyndra bankruptcy, which became the subject of Congressional hearings, stoked concerns about oversight of government-backed energy programs.

Another battery manufacturer that received federal help, Ener1, went bankrupt in January. It had approval for $118.5 million in grants from the Energy Department but had received only about half of that when it entered bankruptcy.

A123 was a centerpiece of the government’s electric-vehicle program, opening two factories in Michigan and securing contracts to supply batteries to automakers including General Motors and the start-up firm Fisker Automotive.

But its financial stability has been in question for more than a year. The company suffered a major setback when it had to recall defective batteries in Fisker cars. And despite orders from carmakers, A123 could not generate sufficient revenue or profit from the slowly growing market for electric vehicles.

In August, A123 surprised industry experts by agreeing to sell up to 80 percent of the company to the American arm of the Wanxiang Group, China’s largest auto parts manufacturer.

Political opponents of the Wanxiang deal asserted that the Chinese company would get access to technology and products made possible by the support of American taxpayers.

One of the critics, Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said the sale of A123’s factories to Johnson Controls was “something positive” because it kept the company’s assets out of Chinese hands.

But Mr. Grassley and Senator John Thune, Republican from South Dakota, criticized the Energy Department, saying it ignored warning signs that A123 was faltering.

“The bankruptcy raises the prospect that the taxpayers will get little or no return on their investment in A123 and will lose millions of dollars,” Mr. Grassley said.

The Energy Department countered that A123’s employees and customers would be absorbed by a larger, stronger competitor in Johnson Controls.

“A123’s manufacturing facilities and technology will continue to be a vital part of America’s advanced battery industry,” said Mr. Leistikow.

Wanxiang, which has its United States headquarters outside Chicago, pledged in August to invest up to $465 million in A123, but the deal fell apart for undisclosed reasons.

“We determined not to move forward with the previously announced Wanxiang agreement as a result of unanticipated and significant challenges to its completion,” said David Vieau, A123’s chief executive, in a statement.

Instead, the company found a new suitor in Johnson Controls, which analysts say is now in position to be the dominant American battery manufacturer.

A123 said filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection would ease the sale of its automotive assets to Johnson Controls. The deal includes Michigan plants in the Detroit suburbs in Livonia and Romulus, as well as A123’s equity interest in battery facilities in China.

Johnson Controls said it would provide $72.5 million in financing for A123’s reorganization in bankruptcy.

“We believe that A123’s automotive capabilities are a good complement to our existing portfolio and will further advance Johnson Controls’ position as a market leader in this industry,” said Alex Molinaroli, head of the power systems unit of Johnson Controls.

Brian Johnson, an analyst with Barclays Capital, said in a research note that the deal would help Johnson Controls become “the U.S.-based player” in the market for lithium-ion batteries.

A123 has also received “significant interest” for its remaining assets, primarily its electric-grid technology and products for commercial and government entities, said Mr. Vieau, the company’s chief executive

Whether Wanxiang will bid on those assets during bankruptcy is not known. The head of the Chinese firm’s United States operations, Pin Ni, said in an e-mail on Tuesday, “Our interest and commitment has not changed” regarding A123.

Matthew L. Wald reported from Washington.

Battery Maker A123 Systems Files for Bankruptcy

The filing came after the lithium-ion battery maker's $465 million rescue deal with Chinese auto parts supplier Wanxiang Group collapsed, hobbled by "unanticipated and significant challenges," A123 said on its website.

A123 has agreed to sell its automotive operations, including two factories in Michigan, for $125 million to Johnson Controls Inc, a leading battery supplier and another recipient of federal green subsidies.

The bankruptcy filing comes as President Barack Obama and Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney prepare for their second debate Tuesday night.

The U.S. Department of Energy allotted about $90 billion for various clean-energy programs through the administration's stimulus package. Of that, at least $813 million went to energy companies that eventually filed for bankruptcy, including A123, Solyndra, Beacon, Abound Solar and EnerDel.

The Solyndra failure has been regularly cited in stump speeches leading up the November 6 U.S. presidential election, including those of Romney, who argues that the government should not be in the business of picking corporate winners and losers.

The administration has countered criticism of its green energy initiative by saying such investments are needed to bolster the U.S. position in the market for fast-moving and competitive technology, such as advanced batteries.

"The riskiest strategy of all is not competing aggressively for the technologies of tomorrow and the jobs that come," Dan Leistikow, DOE director of public affairs, said in a blog post. "In an emerging industry, it's very common to see some firms consolidate with others as the industry grows and matures."

A123 had promised to create 38,000 U.S. jobs, including 5,900 at its own plants, in return for the government funding under the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act's Electric Drive Vehicle Battery and Component Manufacturing Initiative.

A123 has tapped $132 million of its 2009 grant, the DOE said. Johnson Controls, which supplies lithium-ion batteries to a number of vehicle manufacturers, also received a $299 million grant under the same program.

A123 supplies batteries to Fisker Automotive's Karma hybrid, which accounted for 26 percent of A123 revenue last year, and the Chevrolet Spark EV that will be introduced next year by General Motors Co.

"GM is aware of the situation with battery supplier A123," GM spokeswoman Kim Carpenter said. "We are monitoring the situation, but we expect no delays in the Spark EV program."

Johnson Controls supplies batteries to Ford Motor Co, BMW and Daimler, among others.

A123 DEAL A BOOST TO JCI

The bankruptcy filing comes after roughly 8 months of attempts by A123 to find a buyer or strategic investor. In March 2012, A123 hired Lazard Freres & Co, which contacted 74 potential partners and investors, according to court documents.

Only 24 discussed the process with Lazard, but only Wanxiang offered to invest in A123 as a going concern. However, it became apparent that A123 would not be able to satisfy some of the conditions laid out in the Wanxiang deal before A123 ran out of money to pay for operations, documents show.

Johnson Controls has provided $72.5 million in debtor-in-possession financing to A123. Johnson Controls said its interest in A123 "is consistent with its long-term commitment to being a market leader in the advanced battery industry."

"This process is in its early stages, so the company cannot provide further details at this time," the company said.

In a research note, Morgan Stanley analyst Ravi Shankar said Johnson Controls would be able to wring out cost inefficiencies in A123 and possible bring the company to break-even quickly. The deal is expected to be dilutive in the first year.

"The transaction is about closing JCI's technology gap in advanced batteries," Shankar said, adding that the deal will help Johnson Controls compete for next-generation hybrid programs and cement its position in the market for start-stop batteries.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

In court documents, A123 said it expects it will be able to sell its non-automotive operations and has identified certain bidders. A123 listed total assets of $459.8 million and liabilities of $376 million in its Chapter 11 petition.

In the first presidential debate, Romney attacked Obama's promotion of green technologies, saying the administration, in doling out billions to clean-energy companies, only picked losers.

"I mean, I had a friend who said 'You don't just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers, all right?'" Romney said. "This is not the kind of policy you want to have if you want to get America energy secure."

The highest-profile recipient of federal funds, Solyndra, will square off in court on Wednesday against the Internal Revenue Service and the Department of Energy as it argues for its bankruptcy plan.

That plan provides $300 million-plus in tax breaks for Solyndra's venture capital backers while potentially leaving the government with zero return on its investment. Every class of creditor supports the plan except the government, which appears to have negotiated the lowest recovery of all the creditors.

The case is In re:A123 Systems Inc, U.S. Bankruptcy Court, District of Delaware, No:12-12859.

(Additional reporting by Tom Hals in Wilmington, Patrick; Rucker in Washington, Tanya Agrawal and A. Ananthalakshmi in Bangalore.; Editing by Don Sebastian and Dan Grebler)

EADS and BAE Systems Merger Talks Hit Rough Patch

PARIS — Britain, France and Germany failed on Friday to reach an agreement on the proposed $45 billion merger of the European aerospace groups EADS and BAE Systems, people close to the negotiations said.

But the three governments are expected to continue talking in the coming days, with an eye to resolving how to preserve their interests in the companies, as well as the balance of jobs and industrial expertise in their respective countries, if the merger plan proceeds.

A German government spokesman declined to comment late Friday on German media reports that the negotiations were on the verge of collapse. But British and French officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, dismissed the reports as speculation.

The companies said the talks had stalled but denied that the merger plan was dead. “In no way have we been told that the deal is off,” EADS, the European Aeronautic Defense and Space Company, said in a statement.

Talks among the three countries intensified this week ahead of a Wednesday deadline imposed by British market regulators for the two companies to announce a final agreement or seek an extension to continue negotiations. But the governments remain divided over the best way to balance state interests in the merged company, either through direct ownership of shares or through the granting of special voting rights to the governments, said the people close to the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the talks were continuing.

France is standing firm on its insistence that it retain a direct stake in the merged group of no more than 9 percent, reflecting the value of its existing 15 percent stake in EADS, these people said.

Germany, which holds no shares in EADS, has proposed acquiring a 9 percent stake to balance the French holding. Currently, German interests in EADS are represented by the automaker Daimler and a consortium of private and public banks.

Britain, which owns no shares in BAE but can veto any merger, has accepted that the French cannot be forced to sell their stake. But London is worried that a German investment would put too much of the company in government hands and limit its ability to secure contracts in the United States, the world’s largest military equipment market.

“The critical issue is what the government ownership will be,” a person with direct knowledge of the talks said. “The only reason not to do a deal would be around government ownership.”

The deal proposed by EADS and BAE offers Britain, France and Germany each a so-called golden share, with a veto over hostile takeovers or deals involving sensitive national security assets.

But Thomas O. Enders, chief executive of EADS, and his counterpart at BAE, Ian King, have stressed that ownership of ordinary shares would not grant the governments any additional influence in the management of a merged company.

Melissa Eddy contributed reporting from Berlin, and Mark Scott from London.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: October 5, 2012

Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the position of the EADS and BAE chiefs on the prospective effect of share ownership by governments in a merged company. They said ownership of ordinary shares would not grant any additional influence; they were not referring to so-called golden shares with a veto over some deals.